BOOM IN DAIRY FARMING

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIV, Issue 20982, 10 March 1938, Page 7

BOOM IN DAIRY FARMING

PIRATE POLITICAL RADIO WHO ARE THE BIGGEST TALKERS? (From Our Own Correspondent) LONDON, February 3. Just as M.P.s are going back to Westminster after their long New Year holiday they have been handed the official statistics of the amount of talking they did last session. The document is interesting as a mirror of the questions uppermost in the public mind. They were: Trade, Foreign Affairs and the Colonies. Mr Oliver Stanley, President of the Board of Trade, did more speaking than any other Minister or M.P. His speeches filled 84 columns of Hansard, the official report of Parliament. He also answered 278 questions. Mr Eden beat this with 363 questions on Foreign Affairs, but his speeches were shorter Mr Ormsby-Gore had to answer 284 questions on Colonial matters. Compared with other Ministers, the Prime Minister had little to say. Mr Chamberlain, had, indeed, to answer 178 questions, but his speeches filled only a modest 25 columns. More Dairy Farmers Taken all round, dairy farming is to-day the best-paying proposition on the land in England. That is the conclusion to be drawn from a survey just completed by Ministry of Agriculture experts. Their job was to learn how farming has changed since pre-war days; and they found that arable land has been continually dwindling, while dairy production has increased strikingly.

Milk now accounts for more than one-quarter of the whole agricultural output of Britain, and since so many farmers have gone over to dairy production it must be reckoned as the most profitable branch of farming. In spite of subsidies, the wheat acreage is now only half what it was 30 years ago, and the barley acreage only one-third. Market gardening and poultry farming have both forged ahead, after the war. Britain now produces 10 times the quantity of vegetables grown in prewar days while egg production has multiplied by five. Bigger than Ever It goes without saying that the British Industries Fair which opens on February 21 will be bigger than any of its predecessors. Each successive Fair since the first in 1915 has monotonously broken records. For this year’s Fair exhibitors have booked nearly 900,000 square feet of stand-space, which is 11 times the area covered in 1915. Some of the organising officials think that a limit has at last been reached Already the Fair has two separate branches in London and another in Birmingham, and it is considered bad policy to spread it any more. Instead, firms exhibiting next year will be asked to concentrate on quality rather than quantity, and show only their choicest goods on a small stand. When the Fair opens you will hear wonderful stories of millions of pounds’ worth of orders placed in a single day. Take them with a grain of salt. Some firms save up back orders with the object of announcing them all at once on the first day of the Fair and so making a big impression on prospective customers. Radio Politics “Pirate” radio seems to have become a regular weapon of political warfare. Even Stalin now has to cope with it. Somewhere on the Polish-Russian border Trotsky sympathisers with a secret transmitter are nightly broadcasting attacks on the Soviet Government. The Russian police h?ve been as unsuccessful in tracing the source of these broadcasts as have the Germans in tracking down the anti-Nazi transmitter. Probably both pirate stations are located in mobile vans operating from a different place each night; otherwise detection would be easy. As transmitting equipment becomes more compact and efficient the political menace to dictatorial regimes will increase. It may soon be possible to carry in a handbag a propaganda instrument capable of reaching millions of listeners. More Money Wanted One result of Britain’s burst of prosperity is overtime for the Royal Mint. Better trade means more money in circulatioon, and the banks are asking the Mint week by week for more and more coins. Already the nation’s “money-factory” (which has to produce coin for many Empire countries as well) is working 16 or 17 hours a day. Soon it may have to work non-stop throughout the day and night.

Automatic machines are an unsuspected factor making for extra work at the Mint. It is now possible to get almost anything from a bar of chocolate to a basket of fruit out of automatic machines. Millions of coins go

into them every day—and stop there until the machines are cleared. Moreover, the machines reject old and worn coins, so that the Mint has to maintain a continuous supply of new ones. Motor-Cycle Mystery Britain is rapidly approaching the point when there will be two million private cars on the roads. The latest figure, issued this week, is 1,798,105. That is twice the number 10 years ago. Small wonder that the road accident figures show no great improvement. Motor-cycles are something of a mystery. The total on the roads is steadily decreasing—yet every year the number of new machines registered sets up a fresh record. The explanation apparently is that thousands of pedestrians take to motor-cycles each yer.r, but still larger numbers of motorcyclists scrap their machines and buy cars. A Living from Ping-Pong The game of table tennis is barely 40 years old, yet it has already become a flourishing industry. Some of the players travelled thousands of miles to take part in the world championship in London this week, and many spectators came from almost as far afield. Their enthusiasm for what used to be called "ping-pong” makes work for about 5000 people in Britain alone. In a single year players use (or lose) 1,500,00 balls and 100,000 bats. And Britain is only one of many countries which have been swept by the table tennis craze. Trouble at Kew Discouraging reports of atmospheric pollution come from Kew, where rare and delicate plants from all over the world are cultivated. Reports that the metropolitan air is slowly being rid of soot and fumes and the “pea-soup” fogs are a thing of the past have made Londoners complacent. But at Kew things are becoming worse instead of better. Fumes from gas-works and new factories in the neighbourhood are having a serious effect on some of the plants. The director reports that air pollution has become worse during the past two or three years. In an effort to save some of the more delicate tropical plants the air in the glasshouses is being filtered and noon lights have been installed to provide “sunlight.” Ironically enough, it has been found that a good deal of the air pollution comes from the very furnaces with which the hot-houses are heated. The Kew authorities are, therefore, trying to find a suitable smokeless fuel.